Man and Cosmos

Man and Cosmos

A Rudolf Steiner Archive Document

Single Lecture

The lecture presented here was given in Dornach on January 7, 1923,
and is the 3rd of 12 lectures in the series entitled: A Living
Knowledge of Nature, the Fall of the Intellect into Sin, the Spiritual
Resurrection. It appears in the original German in Lebendiges
Naturerkennen, Intellektueller Suendenfall und Spirituelle
Suendenerhebung, Bibliographic Nr. 220, Dornach 1978. This lecture is
also known as: The Widening of Man's Perception.
The translator is unknown.

A lecture by
Rudolf Steiner
Dornach, January 7, 1923
GA 220

The lecture presented here was given in Dornach on January 7, 1923,
and is the 3rd of 12 lectures in the series entitled:
A Living Knowledge of Nature, the Fall of the
Intellect into Sin, the Spiritual Resurrection.
It appears in the original German in
Lebendiges Naturerkennen, Intellektueller Suendenfall
und Spirituelle Suendenerhebung,
Bibliographic Nr. 220, Dornach 1978. This lecture is also known as:
The Widening of Man's Perception.
The translator is unknown.

This English edition is published in agreement with, and the kind
permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach,
Switzerland.

Copyright and all other
Rights of reproduction and translation reserved by
General Anthroposophic Society, Dornach, Switzerland.
Responsibility for the contents of the articles in
the “Anthroposophic News Sheet” attaches
only to the writers.

MAN AND COSMOS

Lecture By Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Given at Dornach
on January 7th, 1923

From
stenographic notes not revised by the lecturer

Within this course
of lectures I intend to speak of things which are connected with
the preceding lectures, but which bring results of spiritual
science drawn from a deeper source and show how the human being
is placed in the universe. We speak of man in such a way that we
envisage, to begin with, his physical organization and his
etheric or vital body revealed to spiritual investigation; and
then we speak of the astral body and of the Ego organization. But
we do not yet grasp man's structure if we simply enumerate these
things in sequence, for each of these members has a different
place in the universe. We are able to grasp man's position in the
cosmos only if we understand how these different members are
placed in the universe.

When we study the
human being, as he stands before us, we find that these four
members of human nature interpenetrate in a way which cannot at
first be distinguished; they are united in an alternating
activity, and in order to understand them we must first study
them separately, as it were, and consider each one in its special
relation to the universe. We can do this in the following way, by
setting out, not from a more general aspect, but from a definite
standpoint.

Bear I mind, to
begin with, the more peripheric aspect of man, the external
boundary, what is outside him. From other anthroposophical
studies we know that we discover certain senses only when we
penetrate, as it were, below the surface of the human form, into
man's inner life. But essentially speaking, also the senses which
transmit us a knowledge of our own inner being, have to be sought
in regard to their starting point, and to begin with in a very
unconscious way, on the inner side of the surface of man's being.
We may therefore say: Everything in man existing in the form of
senses should be looked for on the surface. It suffices to bear
in mind one of the more prominent senses; for example, the eye or
the ear — these show that the human being must obtain
certain impressions from outside. How matters really stand in
regard to these senses should, of course, be studied more deeply,
by a more profound research. This has already been done here for
some of the human senses. But the way in which these things
appear in ordinary life induces us to say: A sense organ —
for example, the eye or the ear — perceives things through
impressions coming from outside.

Man's position on
earth easily enables us to see that the chief direction which
determines the influences enabling him to have sensory
perceptions can approximately be described as
“horizontal.” A more accurate study would also show
us that this statement is absolutely correct; for when
perceptions apparently come from another direction, this is an
illusion. Every direction relating to perception must in the end
follow the horizontal. And the horizontal is the line which runs
parallel to the surface of the earth. If I now draw this
schematically, I would therefore have to say: If this is the
surface of the earth, with the perceiving human being upon it,
the chief direction of his perceptions is the one which runs
parallel to the earth. All our perceptions follow this direction.
And when we study the human being, it will not be difficult to
say that the perceptions come from outside; they reach, as it
were, man's inner life from outside. What meets them from inside?
From inside we bring towards them our thinking, the power of
forming representations or thoughts.

If you consider
this process, you cannot help saying: When I perceive through the
eye, I obtain an impression from outside, and my thinking power
comes from inside. When I look at the table, its impression comes
from outside. I can retain a picture of the table in my memory
through the representing or thinking power which comes from
within. We may therefore say: If we imagine a human being
schematically, the direction of his perceptions goes from the
outside to the inside, whereas the direction of his thinking goes
from the inside to the outside.

What we thus
envisage, is connected with the perceptions of the earthly human
being in ordinary life, of the earthly human being appearing to
us externally in the present epoch of the earth's development.
The things mentioned above are facts evident to the ordinary
human consciousness. But if you study the anthroposophical
literature, you will find that there are other possibilities of
consciousness differing from those which exist for the earthly
human being in ordinary life.

I would now ask
you to form, even approximately and vaguely, a picture of what
the earthly human being perceives. You look upon the colours
which exist on earth, you hear sounds, you experience sensations
of heat, and so forth. You obtain contours of the things you
perceive, so that you perceive their shape, and so forth.

But all the things
in our environment, with which we have thus united ourselves,
only constitute facts pertaining to our ordinary consciousness.
There are, however, other possibilities of consciousness, which
remain more unconscious in the earthly human being and are pushed
into the depths of his soul life; yet they are just as important,
and frequently far more important in human life than the facts of
consciousness which exhaust themselves in what I have described
so far.

For the human
constitution which man has here on earth, the things below the
surface of the earth are just as important as those which exist
in the earth's circumference. The circumference of the earth,
what exists around the earth, may be perceived by the ordinary
senses and grasped by the representing capacity which meets sense
perception. This fills the consciousness of the ordinary human
being living on the earth.

But let us
consider the inside of the earth. Simple reflection will show you
that the inside of the earth is not accessible to ordinary
consciousness. We may, to be sure, make excavations reaching a
certain depth and in these holes — for example in mines
— observe things in the same way in which we observe them
on the earth's surface. But this would be the same as observing a
human corpse. When we study a corpse, we study something which no
longer constitutes the whole human being, but only a residue of
man as a whole. Indeed, those who are able to consider such
things in the right way must even say: We are then looking upon
something which is the very opposite of man. The reality of
earthly man is the living human being walking around, and to him
belong the bones, muscles, etc. which exist in him. The bone
structure, the muscular structure, the nerve structure, the
heart, lungs, etc. correspond to the living human being and are
as such true and real. But when I look upon the corpse, this no
longer corresponds to the living human being. The form which lies
before me as corpse, no longer requires the existence of lungs,
of a heart, or of a muscular system. Consequently these decay.
For a while they maintain the form given to them, but a corpse is
really an untruth, for it cannot exist in the form in which it
lies before us; it must dissolve. It is not a reality. Similarly
the things I perceive when I dig a hole into the earth are not
realities.

The closed earth
influences the human being standing upon it, differently from the
things which exist in such a way that when the human being stands
upon the earth, he beholds them through his senses, as the
earth's environment.

If, to begin with,
you consider this from the soul aspect, you may say: The earth's
environment is able to influence man's senses and it may be
grasped by the thinking or representing capacity pertaining to
ordinary human consciousness. Also what is inside the earth
exercises an influence upon man, but it does not follow the
horizontal direction; it rises from below. In our ordinary state
of consciousness, we do not perceive these influences rising from
below in the same way in which we perceive the earth's
environment through the ordinary senses. If we could perceive
what rises up from the earth in the same way in which we perceive
what exists in the earth's environment, we would need a kind of
eye or organ of touch able to feel into the earth, without our
having to dig a hole into it, so that we could reach or see
through (durchgreifen) the earth in the same way in which we see
through air when we behold something. When we look through air,
we do not dig a hole into it; if we first had to dig a hole into
air, in order to look at it, we would see our environment in the
same way in which we would see the earth in a coal mine. Hence,
if it were not necessary to dig a hole into the earth in order to
see its inside, we would have to have a sense organ able to see
without the need of digging holes into the earth, an organ for
which the earth, such as it is, would become transparent to sight
or touch. In a certain way this is the case, but in ordinary life
these perceptions do not reach human consciousness. For what the
human being would then perceive are the earth's different kinds
of metals.

Consider how many
metals are contained in the earth. Even as you have perceptions
in your air-environment — if I may use this expression
— even as you see animals, plants, minerals, artistic
objects of every kind, so perceptions of the metals rise up to
you from the earth's inside. But if perceptions of the metals
could really reach your consciousness, they would not be ordinary
perceptions, but imaginations. And these imaginations continually
reach man, by rising up from below. Even as the visual
impressions come, as it were, from the horizontal direction, so
the radiations of metals continually reach us from below; yet
they are not visual perceptions of the minerals, but something
pertaining to the inner nature of minerals, which works its way
up through us and takes on the form of imaginations or pictures.
But the human being does not perceive these pictures; they are
weakened. They are suppressed, as it were, because man's earthly
consciousness is not able to perceive imaginations. They are
weakened down to feelings.

If, for example, I
imagine all the gold existing in some way in the caverns of the
earth, and so forth, my heart really perceives an image which
corresponds to the gold in the earth. But this picture is an
imagination, and for this reason ordinary human consciousness
cannot perceive it, for it is dulled down to a life feeling, an
inner vital feeling, which cannot even be interpreted, less still
perceived, in its corresponding image. The same applies to the
other organs, for the kidneys perceive in a definite image all
the tin which exists in the earth, and so forth.

All these
impressions are subconscious and they do not appear in the
general feelings that live in the human being. You may therefore
say: The perceptions coming from the earth's environment follow a
horizontal direction and are met from within by the thinking or
representing power; from below come the perceptions of metals
— above all, of metals — and they are met by feeling,
in the same way in which ordinary perceptions are met by the
thinking capacity. This process, however, remains chaotic and
unreal to the human beings of the present time. From these
impressions they only derive a general life-feeling.

If the human being
on earth had the gift of imagination, he would know that his
nature is also connected with the metals in the earth. In
reality, every human organ is a sense organ, and although we use
it for another purpose, or apparently do so, it is nevertheless a
sense organ. During our earthly life, we simply use our organs
for other purposes. For we really perceive something with each
organ. The human being is in every way a great sense organ, and
as such, he has differentiated, specified sense organs in the
single organs of his body.

You therefore see
that from below, the human being obtains perceptions of metals
and that he has a life of feeling corresponding to these
perceptions. Our feelings exist in contrast to everything coming
to us from the earth's metals, even as our thinking or
representing power exists in contrast to everything which
penetrates into our sense perceptions from the earth's
environment.

But in the same
way in which the influences of the metals reach us from below, so
we are influenced from above by the movements and forms of the
celestial bodies in the world's spaces. We have sense perceptions
in our environment, and similarly we have a consciousness which
would manifest itself as inspired consciousness, as inspirations
coming from every planetary movement and from every constellation
of fixed stars. Even as our thinking capacity streams towards our
ordinary sense perceptions, so we send out to the movements of
the celestial bodies a force which is opposed to the impressions
derived from the stars, and this force is our will. What lies in
our will power, would be perceived as inspiration, if we were
able to use the inspired state of consciousness.

You therefore see
that by studying man in this way, we must say to ourselves: In
his earthly consciousness we find, to begin with, the condition
in which he is most widely awake: his life of sensory perceptions
and of thoughts. During our ordinary, earthly state of
consciousness, we are completely awake only in this life of
sensory perceptions and thoughts. Our feeling life, on the other
hand, only exists in a dreaming state. There, we only have the
intensity or clearness of dreams, but dreams are pictures,
whereas our feeling life is the general soul constitution
determined by life; that is to say, feeling. But at the
foundation of feeling lie the metal influences coming from the
earth. And the consciousness based on the will lies still deeper.
I have frequently explained this. Man does not really know the
will that lives in him. I have often explained this by saying:
The human being has the thought of stretching out his arm, or of
touching something with his hand. He can have this thought in his
waking consciousness and may then look upon the process of
touching something. But everything that really lies in between,
the will which shoots into his muscles, etc., all this remains
concealed to our ordinary consciousness, as deeply hidden as the
experiences of a deep slumber without dreams. We dream in our
feelings and we sleep in our will. But the will which sleeps in
our ordinary consciousness responds to the impressions coming
from the stars, in the same way in which our thoughts respond to
the sense impressions of ordinary consciousness. And what we
dream in our feelings is the counter-activity which meets the
influences coming from the metals of the earth.

In our present
waking life on earth, we perceive the objects around us. Our
thinking capacity counteracts. For this we need our physical and
etheric body. Without the physical and etheric body we could not
develop the forces which work in a horizontal direction —
the perceptive and thinking forces. If we imagine this
schematically we might say: As far as our daytime consciousness
is concerned, the physical and etheric bodies become filled with
sense impressions and with our thinking activity. When the human
being is asleep, his astral body and his Ego organization are
outside. They receive the impressions which come from below and
from above. The Ego and the astral body really sleep in the metal
streams rising up from the earth, if I may use this expression,
and in the streams descending from the planetary movements and
the constellations of fixed stars.

What thus arises
in the earth's environment exercises no influence in a horizontal
direction, but exists in form of forces which descend from above,
and in the night we live in them.

If you could
attain the power of imagination by setting out from your ordinary
consciousness, so that the imaginative consciousness would really
exist, you would have to achieve this in accordance with the
demands of the present epoch of human development; namely, in
such a way that every human organ is seized by the imaginative
consciousness. For example, it would have to seize not only the
heart, but every other organ. I have told you that the heart
perceives the gold which exists in the earth. But the heart alone
could never perceive the gold. This process takes place as
follows: As long as the Ego and astral body are connected with
the physical and etheric bodies, as is normally the case, the
human being cannot be conscious of such a perception. Only when
the Ego and the astral body become to a certain extent
independent, as is the case in imagination, so that they do not
have to rely on the physical and etheric bodies, we may say: The
astral body and the Ego organization acquire, near the heart, the
faculty of knowing something about these radiations coming from
the metals in the earth. We may say: The center in the astral
body for the influences which come from the gold radiations, lies
in the region of the heart. For this reason we may say: The heart
perceives — because the real perceptive instrument in the
astral body pertaining to this part, to the heart — not the
physical organ, but the astral body, perceives.

If we acquire the
imaginative consciousness, the whole astral body and also the
whole Ego organization must enable the parts corresponding to
every human organ to perceive. That is to say, the human being is
then able to perceive the whole metal life of the earth —
differentiated, of course. But details in it can only be
perceived after a special training, when he has passed through a
special occult study, enabling him to know the metals of the
earth. In the present time, such a knowledge would not be an
ordinary one. And today it should not be applied to life in a
utilitarian way. It is a cosmic law that when the knowledge of
the earth's metals is used for utilitarian purposes in life, this
would immediately entail the loss of the imaginative
knowledge.

Last part —
It may, however, occur that owing to pathological conditions, the
intimate connection which should exist between the astral body
and the organs is interrupted somewhere in man's being, or even
completely, so that the human being sleeps, as it were, quite
faintly, during his waking condition. When he is really asleep,
his physical body and his etheric body on the one hand, and his
astral body and his Ego on the other, are separated; but there
also exists a sleep so faint that a person may walk about in an
almost imperceptible state of stupor — a condition which
may perhaps appear highly interesting to some, because such
people have a peculiarly “mystical” appearance; they
have such mystical eyes and so forth. This may be due to the fact
that a very faint sleeping state exists even during the waking
condition. There is always a kind of vibration between the
physical and etheric body and the Ego organization and astral
body. There is an alternating vibration. And such people can be
used as metal feelers — they feel the presence of metals.
But the capacity to feel the presence of special metal substances
in the earth is always based on a certain pathological
condition.

Of course, if
these things are only viewed technically and placed at the
service of technical-earthly interests, it is, cruelly speaking,
quite an indifferent matter whether people are slightly ill or
not; even in other cases, one does not look so much at the means
for bringing about this or that useful result. But from an inner
standpoint, from the standpoint of a higher world conception, it
is always pathological if people can perceive not only
horizontally, in the environment of the earth, but also
vertically, in a direct way, not through holes. What thus comes
to expression, must, of course, be revealed in a different way.
If we take a pen and write down something, this is contained in
the ordinary life of thought; this must be lifeless. But the
ordinary life of thought drowns in light
(“verleuchtet”) — if I may use this expression
in contrast to “darkens” (“verdunkelt”)
— the perception coming from below; consequently, it is
necessary to use different signs from those we use, for example,
when we write or speak; different signs must be used when
specific metal substances in the earth are perceived through a
pathological condition. I observe, for example, that also water
is a metal. Pathological people may actually be trained, not only
to have unconscious perceptions, but also to give unconscious
signs of these perceptions — for example, they can make
signs with a rod placed in their hand.

What is the
foundation of all this? It is based on the fact that there is a
faint interruption between the Ego and astral body on the one
hand, and the physical and etheric body on the other, so that the
human being does not only perceive what is, approximately
speaking, at his side, but by eliminating his physical body he
becomes a sensory organ able to perceive the inside of the earth,
without having to dig holes into it.

But when this
direction exercises its influence, a direction which is normally
that of feeling, then one cannot use the expressions which
correspond to the thinking capacity. These perceptions are not
expressed in words. They can only be expressed, as already
indicated, through signs.

Similarly, it is
possible to stimulate perceptions descending from above. They
have a different inner character; they are no longer a perception
of metals, but inspiration, conveying the movements or the
constellation of the stars. In the same way in which the human
being perceives the earth's constitution as rising up from below,
he now perceives, descending from above, something which again
arises through pathological conditions, when the Ego is in a more
loose connection with the astral body. He then perceives,
descending from above, something which really gives the world its
division of time, the influence of time. This enables him to look
more deeply into the world's course of events, not only in regard
to the past, but also in connection with certain events which do
not flow out of man's free will, but out of the necessity guiding
the world's events. He is then able to look, as it were,
prophetically into the future. He casts a gaze into the
chronological order of time.

With these things
I only wished to indicate that through certain pathological
conditions it is possible for man to extend his perceptive
capacity. In a s o u n d and h e a l t h y way this is done
through imagination and inspiration.

Perhaps the
following may explain what constitutes sound and unsound elements
in this field. For a normal person it is quite good if he has
— let us say — a normal sense of smell. With a normal
sense of smell he perceives objects around him through smell; but
if he has an abnormal sense for any smelling object in his
environment, he may suffer from an idiosyncrasy, when this or
that object is near him. There are people who really get ill when
they enter a room in which there is just one strawberry; they do
not need to eat it. This is not a very desirable condition. It
may, however, occur that someone who is not interested in the
person, but in the discovery of stolen strawberries, or other
objects which can be smelled, might use the special capacity of
that person.

If the human sense
of smell could be developed like that of dogs, it would not be
necessary to use police dogs, for people could be used instead.
But this must not be one. You will therefore understand me when I
say that the perceptive capacity for things coming from below and
from above should not be developed wrongly, so as to be connected
with pathological conditions, for these are positively
destructive for man's whole organization.

To train people to
sense the presence of metals would therefore be the same as
training them to be bloodhounds, police dogs, except that here
— if I may use this expression — the humanly
punishable element is far more intensive. For only through
pathological conditions can such things appear in this or that
person. All the things which generally come towards you in an
ignorantly confused and nebulous way, will be understood in
regard to their theory, and also by judging them as they have to
be judged, within man's whole connection with the world. This is
one aspect of the matter.

The other aspect
is that there is also a right application of such a knowledge. A
person who is endowed with the imaginative power of knowledge,
must not use the imaginative forces of the astral body, located
in the region of the heart, to procure gold. He may, however,
apply these forces to recognize the construction, the true tasks,
the inner essence of the heart itself. He may apply them in the
meaning of human self-knowledge. In physical life this also
corresponds to the right application of — let us say
— the sense of smell, of sight, and so forth. We learn to
know every organ in man when we are able to put together what we
discern as coming from below or from above.

For example, you
learn to know the heart when you recognize the gold contained in
the earth, which sends out streams that may be perceived by the
heart, and when, on the other hand, you recognize the current of
will descending from the sun; that is to say, when you recognize
the counter-current of the sun current in the will. If you unite
these two streams, the joint activity of the sun's current from
above, streaming down from the sun's zenith, and of the gold
perceived below — if the gold contained in the earth stirs
your imagination, and the sun your inspiration, you will obtain
knowledge of the human heart, heart knowledge. In a similar way
it is possible to gain knowledge of the other organs.
Consequently, if the human being really wants to know himself, he
must draw the elements of this knowledge from the influences
coming from the cosmos.

This leads us to a
sphere which indicates even more concretely than I have done on
previous occasions man's connection with the cosmos. If you add
to this the lectures which I have just concluded on the
development of natural science in more recent times, you will
gather, particularly from yesterday's lecture, that on the
present stage of natural science man learns to know essentially
lifeless substance, dead matter. He does not really learn to know
himself, his own reality, but only his lifeless part. A true
knowledge of man can only arise from the joint perception of the
lifeless organs which we recognize in man, the organs in their
lifeless state, and all we are able to recognize from below and
from above in connection with these organs.

This leads to a
knowledge based on full consciousness. An earlier, more
instinctive knowledge was based upon an interpolation of the
astral body which was different from that of today. Today the
astral body is interpolated in such a way that man, as an earthly
human being, may become free. This entails that he should
recognize in the first place what is dead, and this pertains to
the present, then the life foundation of the past through that
which rises up from below — from the earth's metals —
and finally the life-giving forces descending from above as star
influences and star constellations.

A true knowledge
of man will have to seek in every organ this threefold essence:
the lifeless or physical, the basis of life or the psychical, and
the life-giving, vitalizing forces, or the spiritual.

Everywhere in
human nature, in every detail connected with it, we shall
therefore have to seek the physical-bodily, the psychical, and
the spiritual. Logically, its point of issue will have to be
gained from a true estimate of the results so far obtained in the
field of natural science. It is necessary to see that the present
stage of natural science leads us everywhere to the grave of the
earth and that the living essence must be discovered and lifted
out of the earth's grave.

We discover this
by perceiving that modern spiritual science must endow old
visions and ideas (Ahnungen) with life. For these always existed.
In these days I have given advice to people working in different
spheres; I would advise those studying history of literature that
when they speak of Goetheanism, they should keep to Goethe's
ideas expressed in the second part of “Wilhelm
Meister”, in “Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahren”,
where we find the description of a woman who is able to
participate in the movements of the stars, owing to a
pathological condition of soul and spirit. At her side we find an
astronomer. And she is confronted by another character, by the
woman who is able to feel the presence of metals. And at the side
of this woman we find Montanus, the miner, the geologist. This
contains a profound foreboding, far profounder than the truths in
physics discovered since Goethe's time in the field of
natural-scientific development, great as they are, for these
natural-scientific truths pertain to man's circumference. But in
the second part of “Wilhelm Meister” Goethe drew
attention to something pertaining to the worlds with which man is
connected — with the stars above, with the earth's depths
below.

Many things of
this kind may be found, both in the useful fields and in the
luxury fields of science. But also these things will only be
drawn to the surface as real treasures of knowledge, when
Goetheanism, on the one hand, and spiritual science on the other,
will be taken so earnestly that many things of which Goethe had
an inkling will be illumined by spiritual science; and also
spiritual science may thus change into something giving us a
historical sense of pleasure when we see that Goethe had a kind
of idea of things which now arise in form of knowledge, and which
he elaborated artistically in his literary works.

With all these
things, however, I wish to point out that when we speak of
scientific strivings within the anthroposophical movement, these
should be followed with that deep earnestness which does not
bring with it the danger of Anthroposophy being deduced from
modern chemistry, or modern physics, modern physiology, and so
forth, but which includes the single branches of science in the
real stream of living anthroposophical knowledge. One would like
to hear of chemists, physicists, physiologists, medical men
speaking in an anthroposophical way. For it leads to no progress
if specialists succeed in forcing anthroposophy to speak
chemically, physically or physiologically. This would only rouse
opposition, whereas there should at last be a progress, evident
in the fact that Anthroposophy reveals itself as Anthroposophy
also to these specialists, and not as something which is taken in
accordance with its terminology, so that terminologies are thrown
over things which one already knows, even without Anthroposophy.
It is the same whether anthroposophical or other terminologies
are applied to hydrogen, oxygen, etc., or whether one adheres to
the old terminologies. The essential thing is to take in
Anthroposophy with one's whole being, then one becomes a true
Anthroposophist, also as a chemist, physiologist, physician,
etc.

In these lectures,
in which I was asked to describe the history of scientific
thought, I wished to bring, on the basis of a historical
contemplation, truths that may bear fruit. For the
anthroposophical movement absolutely needs to become fruitful,
really fruitful, in many different fields.